


The Best Time to Steal Your Friend's Sweater is All the Time

by FiveNeedsANap



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Female Runner Five, Is It Angst?, It it fluff?, Short One Shot, who knows.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 08:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30019041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveNeedsANap/pseuds/FiveNeedsANap
Summary: There's an unspoken rule around Abel Township: don't loan clothes to Runner Five if you ever want to see them again.A little one shot expanding on a headcanon I have for my Five. Spoilers through S5M30.
Relationships: Runner Five/Sam Yao
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Best Time to Steal Your Friend's Sweater is All the Time

There's an unspoken rule around Abel Township: don't loan clothes to Runner Five if you ever want to see them again.

Or, if you do, understand that it is not a loan: it is a gift, and whatever article of clothing you’ve just handed over will be absorbed into her wardrobe before you can blink.

It started her very first day in Abel. Maxine never did get back the pair of green scrubs she loaned her after she'd come crashing out of the sky. Instead, Five started wearing them around the Township like they'd always been hers.

Keeping the scrubs hadn't been a conscious decision; after all, she'd only known Maxine Myers for a handful of days when she tucked the pants into her drawer rather than returning them. It was as if a small part of her knew how important the doctor would become. That, or her racing mind had latched on to the bright spot that was Maxine's kindness as she settled into her new surroundings.

The next was Sam's sweatshirt - the black one, not his signature orange. He made the mistake of letting her wear it after she'd returned from that now-legendary night run a month after arriving in Abel. Hanging on to _that_ had been on purpose, and she wore it with impunity. It was first a comfortable addition to her meager possessions, then a display of her feelings for the operator before she could articulate them, now a textile reminder of the person she loves most in this world.

Other bits of Sam's wardrobe steadily disappeared as the relationship progressed - t-shirts, jumpers, a couple pairs of thick socks. Admittedly, Sam minds losing his clothes the least of anyone - though when new supplies come in, he tends to choose things in brighter colors he knows won’t interest her.

When Janine sent Tom to meet Five while she was being held in Ministry-controlled Abel, the jacket hadn't been the point - the keycard to the Abel labs had. She hadn’t expected the runner to start wearing it. But there it was, in every clip Amelia managed to recover from Abel’s cameras, the several-sizes-too-big jacket draped around the runner’s shoulders. To Ministry loyalists or betrayed residents, it looked like a taunt about the supposed death of the Abel commander. To Janine, however, it looked like what it was: a display of loyalty to Janine, silent defiance of Sigrid. Five never went anywhere without it.

Naturally, she'd been wearing it the day Sigrid sent her into the training grounds to die.

Of course, she hadn't died. But she had been bitten, a jagged rip through the right sleeve. An overwhelmed Janine hadn't been able to verbalize her relief when Five had awoken at Noah Base and only managed to chastise her for ruining the jacket. Five had smiled, still half-asleep on painkillers, and assured her that it didn't matter: the jacket looked better on her, and Janine wouldn't have gotten it back anyway.

Five wears it to this day, bite-shaped rip and all.

The rule doesn't always prevent things from disappearing - on occasion, leaving something where she can grab it is enough. Paula learned this lesson very quickly after forgetting her scarf in the comms shack only to next see it wrapped around Five's neck while she shivered in the January air. She'd looked so cozy Paula hadn’t the heart to make the runner return it. After all, with Jody around, a new one was only a few knitting needle clicks away.

Jody thought she'd outsmarted Five by knitting her a hat as a gift. It didn't work; the pair of mittens Four begrudgingly handed over during a run never returned to their original owner.

Most Abel residents see this as a quirk, admittedly one that's less concerning than most of the well-traumatized Five's habits. For Five, however, it's become something of a ritual, collecting pieces of the people she loves like talismans. The larger articles of clothing are obvious. But most people don't know that following the death of Sara Smith, Five sewed Runner Eight's armband inside her own. Maggie Doane's is in the front pocket of her pack. The bright pink hair elastic often around her wrist, even when her mane of hair is already tied back, was a gift from Archie when Five’s own snapped during a run. After Simon sacrificed himself on top of the Comansys Tower, she re-tied her sneakers with neon shoelaces from a pair of his, long forgotten in the rec room. Peter recognized them immediately that day at the circus, and he’d nearly cried at the thought that maybe forgiveness was still possible.

So sure, those on the outside are well aware of this endearing, if somewhat irritating, habit, and they take it at face value. Those closer to her see the custom a little more clearly: wrap yourself in something that reminds you of your partner, your best friend, your family, and you’re never really alone.

But that’s not it, not really.

The truth is that Five understands loss better than most. She knows that once it’s come for you, it never, ever stops. If you don’t find an answer to it, the grief _will_ win. Carrying pieces of the dead lets them stay with her long after they’re gone.

But if she carries pieces of the living, holds them close, protects them, then maybe, just maybe, they’ll stay that way.


End file.
